From Margaret Thatcher leaving Number 10 in tears to Gordon Brown holding the hands of his family as he walked down Downing Street into the dusk, the end of a premiership is usually bathed in some pathos. I have occupied a ringside seat for the involuntary departure of six previous prime ministers and for each of those fallen leaders there were expressions of empathy even from their fiercest opponents. To this rule as to so many others, Boris Johnson has proved the ignominious exception. His overdue defenestration has been as devoid of dignity and decency as his time at Number 10.
He is the only premier of modern terms to be fired because his lack of basic probity so disgraced the office that even his long-indulgent party could no longer ignore what he was doing to the country, their reputation and their electoral chances. Tory MPs were aghast, but should not have been surprised, that he sought to cling on even when it was long past obvious that the curtain was crashing down on this tawdry farce. To the last, he had a wanton disregard for anyone’s interests but his own. The result was 40 hours of wild mayhem when he refused to leave even as the government imploded around him. Amidst an unprecedented torrent of ministerial resignations, at one point it looked as though he would try to carry on with Dilyn the Downing Street Dog as chancellor and the rest of the cabinet portfolios shared between Nadine Dorries, Jacob Rees-Mogg and Larry the Cat. My money was on Larry proving to be the least incompetent. In a final desperate attempt to use a lie to save his own skin, it was put about that he would burn down the house rather than surrender the keys by trying to wrangle a snap election out of the Queen in order to swerve a fresh no-confidence vote.
